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“I’m sorry.”
Lumine keeps her head bowed, watching a spot of red bloom from the bandages wrapped around her hand. The physical wound doesn’t run deep. Compared to past ones, it’s merely a scratch, but it’s the worst kind of injury to incur—a strike to the soul. This one manages to cut beyond the bone, a hole punched straight through her chest. She can’t staunch the bleeding.
“Lumine? Did you hear me?”
She did, perfectly, but she pretends the crackling of the campfire mutes Aether’s words.
“…I know you can hear me. Can you look at me?”
Nothing good can come from looking up. She already knows. She needs no confirmation of what she saw. What good are his words? No words that can fix what has been broken exist. For her, they can’t even bend the truth to something gentler—to something a little less sharp.
“Please?” He stabs her with a word.
She looks up to meet his gaze across the dancing flames. Lips downturned and eyes glistening, he repeats his apology. As his words glide through the air, waves of golden light emanate from him, brighter than the campfire’s flames.
For a second, Lumine takes in the lie for the beauty that only she can see. Then, she bleeds.
Strong. Infallible. Unshakeable. There are many things in this world that could be described as such. Truth is not one of them.
Truth is fragile. Frailer than the translucent wings of a butterfly, it ripples and distorts from the slightest of falsities. Its existence is tenuous, capable of being erased with the addition or subtraction of a single word.
Everyone claims to want the truth, but that’s a lie.
The painful reality that Lumine has discovered over the years is that honesty is, in fact, not the best policy. It’s the little lies, the ones told here and there, the ones that pile up in the corners of the memory and lace every other conversation, that are important—no, essential! —for living a conflict-free life. People aren’t looking for unintentionally offensive observations. They aren’t searching for the ugly; they’re seeking the pretty. They’re not dying for an abhorrent reality; they’re living for a lovely fantasy.
That’s it—the honest truth.
As for Lumine? Lumine’s no different than anyone else. If she could, she’d dive headfirst into the lie and drown in it, willingly swallowing it down by the lungful. But she can’t. No lie can escape her sight. Not even her own.
Years ago, she had ventured to the vast deserts of Sumeru on a treasure hunt to explore some ruins for relics. The assigned guide had taught her all about the dangers hidden in the sands. She took them to heart while she was there but forgot the majority after selling off the relics for mora. There was no need to remember. After all, Teyvat held no other deserts. Only one stuck with her—the warning about mirages.
What appeared to be water was the reflection of the sky on sand caused by the refraction of light, a bending of the truth. Mirages were pretty lies, living without an inherent intention to do harm. And yet, they were responsible for several deaths under the desert’s oppressive heat.
With pockets filled with mora and her conscious burdened by her actions, she had left Sumeru and vowed to never trek the sands again; but, even in the lush greenery of Mondstadt, she stumbles into a mirage every day.
A curse plagues her.
People curse mirages. They say it’s terrible to wander about searching for something that never was, is, or will be. They say it’s horrible to latch onto a falsity.
They say this from the perspective of someone who can be blinded, of someone who doesn’t know that the grass is in no way greener on the other side, of someone who doesn’t know it’s dead. A mirage is misleading, but it is hope. It takes; it gives.
Humans need water to survive. Lumine may not be human, but she needs it all the same. In the desert, the necessity runs scarce. It’s no wonder that the thirsty race off towards dubiously convenient puddles of water. At least for them, the mirage tastes sweet on the tongue for a bit, satiating until the truth reveals itself.
For Lumine, it’s clear from the start. She sees the water for what it is—a lie. Parched, her mouth hangs open, praying to taste a drop of delusion. She gets no relief.
All she has is the desert. Endless. All she has is the truth. Constant. All she has is nothing. Infinite. All she has is herself. Alone.
Silence rains over their campsite, and the particles of gilded lies dissipate, leaving them in the cloak of darkness.
Hands trembling in her lap, Lumine summons the courage to ask, “Were you planning on coming back for me?”
“Yes,” Aether answers without hesitation. Shocked offense rests on his face as if to say, how could you even ask that?
The light of fire sits between them, the only source of illumination on the moonless night. Truth. He speaks the truth. Relief stitches the edges of her wound, trying to mend the damage.
“If I hadn’t been able to…” She bites her lip. “Would you have saved me or the rest of the party?”
“You.”
The world turns bright. Gold colors the night.
“I would,” he insists. “I messed up earlier, but I—If it was you or them, I’d pick you every time.”
Surrounded by the sandstorm of visible lies, she says nothing. She has nothing.
“You know that… Right?” he pleads. “You have to believe me. You have to.” His body language hits all the notes of sincerity, imploring her to place her trust in him.
Revenge whispers in her ear, but she can’t bring herself to stab.
Nodding, Lumine paints a smile on, letting the falsities cake onto her skin, and speaks a shimmering oasis into existence. “I believe you.”